For Now
by Equilly
Summary: Of love and betrayal. Galadriel, Celeborn, Celebrimbor, and the turning of the world, caught in a fragment of Eregion. Complete.


A/N: I am royally obsessed with _The Silmarillion_, and more specifically with Celeborn and Galadriel. Please review and tell me what you think! I'm enjoying dabbling with these characters and making them whole in my mind. This story has been sitting on my computer for some weeks and I finally picked it up and dusted it off a little. Hopefully it passes muster.

Also.

I cannot wait until November. Nanowrimo, anyone?

Enjoy!

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><p>Title: For Now<p>

Rating: K+

Characters: Celeborn, Galadriel, Celebrimbor

Summary: Or, Of Love and Betrayal. Galadriel, Celeborn, Celebrimbor, and the turning of the world.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of _The Silmarillion_ or _Lord of the Rings_, and I am certainly not John Donne, who wrote the lovely poem from which I have taken the following stanza.

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><p>"So let us melt, and make no noise,<br>No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;  
>'Twere profanation of our joys<br>To tell the laity our love."

- "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"

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><p>Pounding hooves in the courtyard, and then someone rapped on their door sharply, and she flung herself into wakefulness as Celeborn left her side.<p>

"Lord," it was a guard, a young elf that she knew not, doubled over and gasping, his hair disheveled, "lord, they have come!"

She understood her husband's flickered gaze and brought the child- for so he was- water as Celeborn gestured for him to continue.

"The lord Celebrimbor, calling himself lord of Eregion-,"

"_Celebrimbor_?" His exclamation was startled and loud. "Lord of Eregion!"

But she already knew and her stomach sank, swirling in a morass of horror and hurt and something like fear, for if Celebrimbor came, then-

"Ready the guard," said Celeborn, drawing himself up as a commander, a king, but she put out a hand.

"No," she said. "No. How many are yet loyal?"

The guard hesitated.

"The children," she said, and when Celeborn drew back, reaching for his sword, she fastened her hand about his arm, staying him. So it might not once have been, for ever had she been the impulsive one, the warrior, the righteous flame, but from him she had learned caution and retreat, and so in that moment she was his bastion, the anchor.

He drew in breath. "Yes," he said.

.

The two of them had long understood each other, he over the forge, she watching, his hands quicker and defter than hers, natural and smooth, but her mind flew beyond that of the physical, imagining the greatness they could make- together.

"Your hair," he had said to her, for he had captured the light of the Two Trees and saw it in her tresses, their flickering, beautiful light, and wanted it, for it was not enough for him to possess only part.

He wanted all.

She had loved him, fiercely, devotedly, with a heart bent to guile just as was his, but with blood on his hands (on _hers_) she had turned away in horror, her heart screaming in betrayal and hurt and self-loathing. She might have fought for the Teleri, but she had helped to begin all he had done; she had loved him, trusted him, been his voice to her brothers and to their people.

"The Valar do not love us," she had told them, though her father had argued against her, fought her rebellion, sought to retake her, "but Fëanor will guide us to a land of our own!"

And suddenly her world came crashing down about her and she was left as a bewildered child.

_Oh_, whispering, arms wrapped tightly about her; a edged smile, her sword belted at her waist, hair braided behind her, and she might feign wholeness, but inside she quaked, for she had forsaken her home for his promises and they had become none.

.

Celebrimbor, though- he had none of his grandfather's ambition, but he had the same mastery of his craft, and the making of that which was great and beautiful. In him she had seen Fëanor's will, his love of all that could be shaped in his hands, with none of his lust for power (_that which I saw too late_) and they had spent long happy hours together, alike as sister and brother.

When he worked, he would lose sight of the world, his eyes turning inward and gleeful, his movements fast and furious, scattering parchment and discarded sketches and wine flagons about, and he did not care- "Where is it?" he would say, "Like this! Do you see?"

.

She did not like him.

.

Cool, he had seemed to her, and remote; distantly noble and elusive: a strong warrior, a loyal counselor, but she began to see that there was softness, too- laughing with Lúthien, bending his head to the Queen.

.

One morning the dawn hung before them, chill and perfect and grey with a hint of silver, and, her face slicked with sweat, her practice sword in hand, she had turned and then she saw him, eyes alight with fire as he held his own blade, laughing, parrying, so full of light that she could not breathe.

"Will you dare, lady?" he had called to her, catching her gaze.

He won.

Pure exhilaration, and she laughed with him.

Afterwards his friend had told her, "No one beats Celeborn."

But it was both their victory- a meeting of skill, of like minds.

.

Silver and gold, Lúthien had called them, smiling.

.

"_Cousin_," Celebrimbor had said to her, bowing. "Nerwen!"

"Galadriel," she had corrected, her smile as wide as his, but uncertainty flickered underneath her veneer of joy.

He had frowned over the syllables, demanding, "Who dares to name you?" His eyes had flashed hot with fire when Celeborn came to greet him, unwaveringly gracious and diplomatic as ever, but later when she had gone to him, she had seen the smoldering in the set of his shoulders, the line of his jaw.

"He wants you," her lover had said abruptly.

"He is my cousin," she replied, "of sorts, I suppose, I do not-," and then she fell silent for she would not lie, not to him, he was dearest to her heart. And she did not know.

"You love him."

"_Wait_," she began, and then helplessly, "please, Celeborn!"

He looked at her, his smile twisted and just as helpless as hers.

.

When she was a child, they had played a game, she and beautiful, fiery, proud Aredhel, clutching daisies in their hands:

"He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me-,"

And now she does the same, plucking one petal at a time, but she is too afraid to finish, too afraid that she will find truth.

She needs him; he is her rock, her anchor to all that is good and true and solid. His love fastens her to the fierce goodness, the unwavering love of truth, that she sees within herself, mirrored so fiercely in his own spirit, and with him she is strong and unassailable and at the same time vulnerable, for she knows he will not let her stumble, and if she is weak he will shield her.

But she is fire, too, blazing hot in the forges, in Fëanor's, in Celebrimbor's- the fire of creation, of possession.

.

She goes to him where he stands, jaw tight, gazing into the darkness that for him is a comfort. He is dark; she is light. Silver and gold. They are different and faceted, brought together by only the most tenuous of links, and yet when she reaches for him, fastening her fingers about him, she is suddenly strong. An impregnable fortress.

"Listen to me, please!"

She is begging.

Slowly he turns to her, and there is new heaviness in him, as if in Celebrimbor he has understood something of her fire, something of her darkness, but he grasps her all the more tightly.

"And I," he begins, and the words fall into the stillness like droplets of water, perfect, beautiful, and finite.

.

And then.

.

Celebrían had her father's temperament: quieter, cooler, level-headed, and she went pale but nodded.

Amroth raged.

Celeborn's face was dark and he said nothing, and so Galadriel drew it upon herself to be the bastion that he always was.

"No," she said, "you must go, whatever happens, to Amdír in Lórien. Promise me!"

He hesitated, his hand tightening on his sword, as though he could single-handedly subdue a revolt, but in the end, as Celebrían came to take his hand, adding her voice to her mother's, he gave way.

"Adar," he said, father and son, and Celeborn turned. It was the same darkness in his face that she had seen when he first met Celebrimbor and he understood; it was the darkness of truth, of betrayal. "Be careful-,"

"Go now," said her husband, but there was no time.

New guards came, taking their swords, frightened and wary but determined all the same, and behind them came Celebrimbor, her uncle's grandson, the one she might have loved.

.

But they were too similar.

.

His sword at her husband's throat, biting into skin, drawing blood, and she drew in breath so suddenly that it tore at her throat.

"_Please_," she said.

Begging.

For Celeborn she would do it; for him she would do anything. For him she would flee a kingdom. For him she would die, for him she would even humble herself, divest herself of power and wealth and beauty, of all else that had ever mattered to her- jewels, dreams since the beginning of time, since the days in her uncle's forge, since before they crossed to Middle-earth, since the time of daisies with Aredhel.

And Celeborn, if he could, would keep those dreams for her.

Celebrimbor would take everything to possess, just as his grandfather might have done- how wrong I have been, to think he is different, a fool I was, _never again_, I will never let myself be blinded!

"Traitor!" Amroth railed, but even that did not move the smith-lord; her son raged, his face red, his fists clenched, but for his father he did not dare move.

And how this strange creature, this twisted scum of fire and dirt- how he would love to kill her husband, to see his blood pool on the cool white marble.

She is sickened but composed. She is Galadriel, not Artanis, not Nerwen; she is steady, unflinching, and true. She is Queen, not of a land any longer, but with him she owns the world, and it is his breath at her side that stirs her to beg once more.

"Please, Celebrimbor."

But it was not her voice that move him, for he presses the sword forward as if he will truly slay Celeborn, and then, from behind them, a whisper of a gasp.

Celebrían: her father's daughter in temperament, her father's hair, but with her mother's face, her impetuous gestures, her wide gleaming eyes, and Celebrimbor faltered, perhaps seeing Artanis in her face, a memory of long-past years and something of love.

It was enough for Celeborn to step aside, to twist away from the sword, and Celebrimbor did not advance, though still he brandished the sword.

"Go," he said. "Leave these lands."

And she drew in a deep, shuddering breath, putting him aside from her thoughts, banishing Celebrimbor from her mind, and reaching for her husband's arm. He is well, and her world settles shakily into a semblance of truth.

.

Later, she stopped to nurse the wounds of betrayal, and he dismounted to take her arm, offering just the slightest touch as comfort, and she leaned into him. His strength, her strength.

"We will survive," he said. "Just as we always have."

"Yes," she said. "Fëanor and Celebrimbor and my father," even Eru and the Valar; betrayal, one after another.

But his grip was steadying and she leant her head against his shoulder. Briefly. Just enough for reassurance.

Later she will weep with sudden, wild abandon and he will encircle her in his arms; with him she will be open and truly vulnerable. Later he will refuse to leave; later she will be forced to flee, to take her children and become a refugee, to fling herself upon another's mercy, to humble herself once more.

But for now-

They will be well.

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><p>AN: Please review. I'm really beginning to like these two, though I don't have the patience or the time to write a longer story about them (yet). Also, I love Celeborn.

Thanks for reading!

-claire

3 September 2011


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